Trapped in a showcase marriage and a downward spiral of depression, Sofia Gould abandons her plush life in Los Angeles for the promise of spiritual rebirth offered by a bizarre European cult known as The Temple of the Sun and its charismatic frontman, Luc Fourche. To retrieve her, Sofia's studio mogul husband retains Stephan Raszer, a private investigator who navigates the nether world with a child's boundless curiosity and a journalist's skepticism. Raszer is no mere "de-programmer". Like the lost souls he seeks to redeem, he is looking for something worthy of his faith.

The Temple claims descent from a medieval order which lies at the center of eight centuries of conspiracy theory and high-stakes espionage. Inside its labyrinth lie scandalous secrets, occult mysteries and danger. Raszer may be the only man who can penetrate the heart of darkness and strike a match to Sofia's dying light. If not, she and five others will trade their worldly possessions for a ticket on a cosmic voyage beyond belief. And there is more at risk than money, for the Temple of the Sun is a jet set suicide cult which has declared a jihad on life itself. To free Sofia from its grasp, Raszer will have to answer a question worthy of the Sphinx: is Luc Fourche selling snake oil, or something more sublime?

Sofia's twisted trail takes Raszer from his Hollywood home turf via the Temple's murky front operation in Montreal to the fog-haunted streets of Prague, but he will not confront his true nemesis until he has thrown himself, bruised and nearly broken, into the forge of the hallucinatory Australian Outback. Along the way, Raszer comes to know Sofia's journey as the shadow of his own path, her hunger for oblivion as the dark side of his own thirst for wholeness. Raszer has a score to settle with his soul, and it's far more than just "another case" when saving Sofia may allow the detetective to reclaim a piece of himself left behind years before.